


Marry me, Lone?

by words_savedme



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Best Friends to Lovers, F/M, Mention of Sarah Lyons, extreme fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_savedme/pseuds/words_savedme
Summary: Butch loves Lone, and Lone loves Butch. Now that Lone is no longer dead or on the verge of death, Butch decides to make his move, but Lone messes with his plan.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Marry me, Lone?

Lone stirred awake, flinching as she stretched her limbs. Her ribs hurt, every breath stung, and her mouth was dry, but she forced her eyelids open.

The first thing Lone saw was Butch. Butch, her best friend, her goofy partner-in-crime who never backed down from a dare, especially from Sarah Lyons. The boy who never left her, even when she was bleeding out in raider territory, on the verge of death, even when she had no energy to bathe herself after weeks of nonstop adventuring, Butch never let her down. 

“Butch.” Lone’s voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. So quiet Lone could barely hear herself, and she prepared for the painful idea of walking to Butch and tapping his shoulder to wake him up.

Butch hummed before he did anything else, which made Lone smile. She laid back in bed, eyeing him from afar. Lone was clueless as to how long she’d been in the hospital bed, but apparently not long enough for Butch to break his habit of making Lone beg him to wake up in the mornings. Before the purifier incident, Butch would roll on top of Lone and smother her before he would leave the bed. He refused to get up unless Lone gave him a piece of gum or stayed for five more minutes--which inevitably turned into ten minutes, and then an hour, until Sarah Lyons interrupted their quiet conversation by tossing a loaded pistol on the bed.

After a few seconds of silence, Lone whispered the boy's name again.

“Butch,” Lone swallowed down the cracks in her throat, nearly choking to gather enough, “It’s me, Butch.” 

Butch’s eyes flew open. He sat up quickly, almost bumping his head on the wall. His mouth hung open, brow furrowed together. His eyes crossed over Lone, alive and staring back at him from across the room.

Lone felt embarrassed under his gaze. Even after a radiation-induced coma, after defeating the Enclave together and saving the Brotherhood, Butch’s stare still brought a blush to Lone’s cheeks. 

Lone pushed herself onto her elbows, smiling and waiting for Butch to tackle her in a hug, the way he always did after they finished a battle. Waiting for Butch to smother her and make her feel safe like he always did. Waiting for Butch to do something, because Lone could barely sit up without growing light-headed.

“You’re awake.” Butch’s eyes filled with tears. He stood from the chair, and Lone heard his knees pop from too much radiation and too little rest. She nodded, feeling her own tears building, her throat pinching closed. Lone extended a hand in his direction, palm up, trembling and swallowing back her cries. 

Butch took two strides to the side of her bed. His shirt was twisted around his body, his hair was out of place, and his eyes were dark. He looked half-dead, and Lone didn’t feel much better. 

Lone figured Butch would wrap her in a bear hug, the way he always did. She figured he would nearly crush her bones and spin her around before tripping and landing on top of her, ending in a fit of laughter.

Instead, Butch touched Lone’s outreached hand. His fingers ghosted over her palm, and Lone closed her hand over his, putting all her energy into squeezing his fingers and showing him she was still Lone, the fearless and dumb teenager she always was. Her hand gave Butch’s fingertips little more than a ghost of a pinch before Lone’s fingers collapsed onto the side of the bed, exhausted. 

Butch’s eyes were on her hand. He hadn’t looked Lone in the eyes since he first awoke, and Lone felt like he was seeing through her, like she was a ghost. She felt naked.

Lone knew Butch would talk when he was ready, so she let him stare. She let him kneel down next to the bed and swallow his tears, let him bring her fingers to his lips and kiss the skin, and she let him trace his hands up her body, from her wrist down to her stomach, over her thighs and back up to her cheeks. As Butch trailed a thumb across Lone’s nose, the first hint of a smile appeared on his face, crooked and soft. Lone felt the first tear slip past her grip, down to his hand, and he wiped the droplet away. 

Butch was almost finished with his inspection of her post-coma state, Lone knew this. She knew he was on the verge of speaking, of collapsing completely, could tell by his scrunched nose and watery eyes, so she let him finish.

Butch took his thumb and swiped across Lone’s bottom lip, stopping to tap her scar from the fist fight with Moriarty her first day in Megaton. He smiled as another tear dripped onto his finger.

Butch’s own tears began to fall as he stood from his knees and towered over Lone. One of his tears fell onto Lone’s cheek, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was a hug from Butch, for him to say something stupid to make her laugh. Lone wanted to hug him herself, to wrap her arms around his neck and bring him down to her, but she could hardly lift her own shoulders off the pillows, let alone pull a muscled, twenty-year old boy to her bed. 

Lone tried to reach out to Butch, raising an arm in his direction before letting her muscles fail, sobbing at both her patheticness and her gratitude for him sticking around, always sticking around even if she didn't deserve his loyalty. She felt exhausted and invincible all at once, and her head spun. 

Lone wanted Butch. She wanted all of him, the hair-obsessed boy who could snipe raiders from miles away and make her laugh after an encounter with the Enclave, and she wanted the boy who slept for ten hours every night, the boy who sang her to sleep, the boy who held her at night when she couldn’t help but cry and grieve for all the people and things lost since she left the vault.

Butch took the hint when Lone lifted her arm to him. He wanted to hug her, too, wanted to smother her so she knew how he felt, knew that without her he had no best friend and no future and no love. She was his everything, his endgame, and Butch would do anything to keep her around.

Butch bent down over Lone, like his torso was a magnet hooked on her body, finally looking her in the eyes. He swallowed once more, lip trembling in an attempt to contain his hurricane of emotions. His hands shook, but Butch knew if he didn’t hug her he would never forgive himself. 

He lifted her shoulders from the pillows, checking to see if Lone could raise her head on her own before continuing. Butch wrapped his arms around her back, pressing his face into her neck, sobbing along with her. Lone smelled like the Brotherhood’s shampoo, and every move made her wince, but Butch couldn’t think about anything other than the fact that she was alive and breathing on her own, without needing robotic replacements like the Brotherhood feared she might. She was alive and shaking in his arms, and Butch was so in love and so glad she was alive he could have melted right then and there.

Lone found the strength to hug him as soon as Butch touched her, hands climbing onto his shirt and clinging for dear life. She wanted nothing more than to be in Butch’s arms, to get out of the stupid bed and let him carry her to a house in Megaton. She wanted Butch.

The two of them clung to each other for nearly five minutes, sobbing and curling into one another. After a few moments, Butch moved to the edge of the bed, careful to keep his space from the fragile girl beside him. 

“When you get better, you wanna move to that house in Megaton?” Butch’s voice was groggy, the way he sounded in the mornings next to Lone. She always told him how she liked his morning voice, how his voice humanized his good looks.

Before the purifier incident, Butch thought about the empty house in Megaton for months. He wanted to ask Lone at the right time, wanted to take her on a kind of date before he did so. Butch wanted to marry Lone properly, like people did in the vault, and live in a little house and worry about money and not about the Enclave’s next moves or the Brotherhood’s quests.

When Lone almost died, all Butch could think about was her. He spent the last two weeks avoiding sleep and food, and doing push ups in her room while the monitor beeped every two seconds. All he could think about was whether or not she’d wake up, and now she was awake and alive and hugging him and Butch could barely breathe. 

As Butch felt Lone in his arms, he remembered the house. He remembered the couch he hid in Rivet City for the two of them, and the mattress Harkness offered him when Butch asked him for advice with Lone.

“She loves you, kid. Anyone can see that.” That’s what Harkness said when Butch asked if marriage was too much to propose. Harkness patted Butch on the back and returned to work soon after, leaving the twenty-year old boy with a goofy look on his face. 

Lone nodded into Butch’s neck, nodded until Butch laughed and scooped her off the bed, into his arms and around the room, her IV needle twisted around their bodies. 

Lone was skinny, half her muscle from the wastes gone, and Butch could feel the difference as he held her. He could see the exhaustion in the dark circles beneath her eyes, and feel her ribs under his fingers, but Butch didn’t care as long as Lone was alive, and alive for the rest of his life. 

Butch set her back down in bed after a few minutes, after the two of them were out of breath from laughing and Butch was so intoxicated by Lone’s touch that he felt drunk. He set her down and plopped next to her curling an arm behind her shoulders and pulling her to his side. Lone melted, same as always, and thanked the God her father believed in for sending Butch her way.

…

“Butch, you wanna marry me?” Lone’s voice was still half-gone, but she projected as much as she could, the water beside her bed soothing the soreness in her throat. Butch sat beside her in the chair and played Three Dog on the radio, catching Lone up on all the news in the past two weeks. Everything on the radio was because of her, every segment occurred because of Lone, and Butch squeezed her hand anytime Three Dog mentioned her name.

He laughed after Lone popped the question, tossed his head back and felt his entire body let go of the breath it had held inside for the past eight months. Butch brought their entwined hands to his chest and swallowed his tears once more.

“Yeah, I’ll marry you.” Lone exhaled as Butch answered. She watched him dig in his jacket pocket too, licking his lips nervously. “I got you a ring a while ago, actually. Was gonna ask you after everything was over, but…” Butch trailed off, pinching his brow together. Lone felt tears build in her eyes once more, and stared at the ring in his hand. It was old and rusted on the band, but she didn’t mind. The ring could have been a piece of wasteland candy and Lone still would have married Butch. 

Lone stuck her hand out, the last remaining energy she had, and Butch slipped the ring onto her finger, laughing again. Lone giggled with him and leaned into Butch’s lips swiping over her cheek. 

“Marry me, Lone?” He was smiling as he spoke, down on one knee. Butch’s hair was still wild, and he looked so young in front of Lone, looked like he had just left the vault. Lone let her tears fall, a smile over-taking her face and nodding furiously. 

“Yeah, I’ll marry you.”


End file.
